Worthlessness
by gorgeousbowneyesslash
Summary: One Shot. Just a small fic with an idea I've been mulling around. Harry is a slut, but this doesn't deal with the actual acts he commits, more the emotional and social ramifications. Angsty, mentions of slash Harry isn't straight!


_**Worthlessness**_

_**By gorgeousbowneyes**_

One Shot

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He sniffed and rolled over on the bed. He was staring off into space, eyes unfocused, red and puffy. His lips, nose and cheeks were flushed and splotchy from crying, unfortunately he wasn't one of those people who can still look good after crying. His arms were wrapped around a soft pillow that he was clutching to his chest, his head resting on another identical white pillow. He sighed, and reached for a tissue. He wiped his away his tears and blew his nose, not that it helped much. He glanced at the mess of a room he was in. Before breaking down and crying he'd been in a fit of anger, and had destroyed his room at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Tearing books off the shelves, clothes off their hooks, the sheets off the bed, posters off the walls and smashing everything he could reach, he successfully destroyed the whole contents of the room, but it didn't help the way he felt.

Harry was angry, but he couldn't blame anyone. No one was at fault. The only possible person he could blame is himself for letting it happen. So he screamed and raged at himself, destroying his room and his few possessions. He didn't want to cry. He'd promised himself he wouldn't. But he had. And he had broken down, the barriers that he'd erected around his heart to stop form getting hurt had come crashing down. His resolve to be strong, strong for everyone else, because they couldn't be, and had to rely on him, wavered and broke. All because he'd lost faith in himself.

He'd lost his sense of worth. Ever since he was one, people had idolised him, but he'd never felt any of what supposed power, strength, greatness was apparently in him. He wasn't a hero. If anyone was, his mother was, for giving her life, but not him. So he'd denied it all to himself inwardly. He pretended for the sake of others. He'd put on a strong brave face, a farce that he was expected to wear to make everyone else happy.

But none of this was why he was upset. It was the choices he'd made after realising he couldn't keep pretending that had him in a crying rage. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the wall opposite him, and grimaced. He couldn't meet his own eyes any more. Scared that if he did, he'd judge himself too harshly and he wouldn't be able to live with himself any more. He could no longer look at those Lily green eyes without speculation at how ashamed of him those parents of his must be of him if only they knew what he'd done, been doing, and would probably continue to do.

He was using himself. Using his own body to try and find some other form of feelings, emotions, something different to feel than the suppressed supposed hero he was supposed to be. He didn't want to stop to think of how many stranger's beds he'd slept in, or what the wizarding world thought of him. He'd glimpsed briefly a title of a newspaper clipping that had been sitting on the table that morning that someone in the house must have cut out in hopes that he'd see it and try to change.

He grimaced at the words that flowed through his head once more, "Harry 'Harlot' Potter" the harsh nickname the press had given him once they'd gotten wind of his newest activities, which were not so new anymore. He hadn't bothered to read any more of the damned clipping. Why did the wizarding public care what he did with his private life so much? If he chose to sleep around, shouldn't it be his choice, and not that of others whose only wishes were to manipulate him into giving his life and soul to a cause he was forced to be a part of?

He was sure that if he'd been like any other 'normal' male and chose to seek out multiple girls to bed, the press and the rest of the world wouldn't give a shit. But because of his 'alternative lifestyle choices' he was much more interesting to the general public. The wizarding world had a gay saviour. One that liked to be treated like a whore and abused.

Supposedly. Yes that was mostly true, but he could no longer deny the feelings of self loathing and hatred because of the choices he'd made. He'd been a whore, and he couldn't expect them to treat him all that well because of it. And he couldn't stop. He was too addicted to the sensations to stop, no matter how much he despised himself for it, no matter how much he disgusted himself.

His friends and family didn't understand, couldn't understand, would never understand exactly what he was doing. He wasn't even sure he knew why he was doing it either. All he knew that for a little while he could escape himself and the pressures of the world put on him. He could take away the Boy Who Lived title, be nobody, worthless, for a little while, and not have a care in the world. Worthless was good, he wasn't required to do anything and didn't let anybody down because nothing was expected of him. He tried so hard to achieve that, but with who he was, he could never be worthless. And he hated that fact just as much as he hated wanting to be worthless.

He started crying afresh and couldn't stem the flow of tears that were streaming freely down his face. He heard someone walk to his door and knock tentatively. He sobbed and twisted to face the wall, not wanting anyone to see him in such a state.

"Harry? It's Hermione. We were downstairs and heard a bit of a commotion up here. Are you alright?" the person from the other side of the door asked, statedly Hermione.

"Go away," he said, loud enough for her to hear, but in a soft and dejected voice.

"Harry, please! We all care about you, and I hate to see you suffering. Please, let me in."

The tentative let me in was not just meant for opening the door. He hadn't let any of his friends get close emotionally to him in a long time. They just wouldn't understand him. Nobody would. So if he opened that door and let her in now, he knew she'd expect explanations and would want to console him and pity him and say it will be all right when it fucking won't be.

"No Hermione, just leave me be."

"Harry James Potter, open this door this instant before I blow it down. I'm coming in whether you choose to let me or not! We all love you and care about you and I will not stand to see you hurting like this any longer!"

"Don't you mean Harry Harlot Potter!?!?!" he screamed back at the door. "Don't you dare come in here, I'm not in the mood!"

"I don't care if you're in the mood or not! You are going to talk to me face to face!" Her voice softened however to add "And no, I don't mean Harry Harlot Potter. That's just stupid rubbish the Prophet is writing about you again. It's none of their business and they shouldn't be saying things like that."

"Shouldn't, but did."

"Oh c'mon Harry! Just open the damn door!"

Harry grabbed his wand from where it was lying next to him on the bed angrily and swished it in the general direction of the door, releasing the wards he'd put up around it. Hermione must have sensed or felt them come down, and opened the door quickly before he changed his mind, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind her once more.

She sucked in a sudden breath at the state of the room. "Jeez, looks like a cyclone hit this room, Harry."

"Yeah, well."

"I take it this was the source of the noises we heard?" she said, gesturing vaguely at the mess of the room. Harry just nodded silently, his back still turned to her, pillow clutched to his chest, knees brought up around it in an imitation of the foetal position. To Hermione he must have looked small and fragile, weak and depressed, his current crying state making it all the worse.

She came and sat next to him on the bed and placed her hand on the his shoulder. He jerked it away swiftly. Her hand hovered for a moment before falling to sit rest on her own thigh, sensing Harry you wouldn't be very receptive to her holding him.

"Harry, we're all worried about you, I'm worried about you. I love you and don't want to see you hurting. I want to help you."

"Well you can't, Hermione, no one can."

"Harry, don't say that! I'm sure everything will be fine – "

"You know what Hermione?!?!! I'm sick of hearing your simple platitudes that are meant to try and console me! It doesn't work! Saying that everything will be fine doesn't make it so! You know NOTHING about what I'm going through and yet you waltz in here expecting to be able to make everything as right as rain again! Well you CAN'T fix me, like you so desperately want to so that you don't have to worry about what's going to happen in the war! Just fuck off and leave me alone."

He went to roll over again and sulk for a while longer, but thought better of it. He got up quickly, searched through the mess for his jacket, and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He went down the stairs to the hallway, and was heading to the door way when Ron came out of the door to the sitting room.

"Hermione what happened we heard – " He stopped mid sentence when he saw Harry standing where he had thought Hermione had been. " – Shouting."

"God, what is this, a bloody intervention??" Harry demanded, Ron blocking his path to the exit.

"Harry please...Mate, we're just all worried for you."

"Well you can take your worry and shove it, for all the good it does. Your worry isn't going to fix anything, it's not going to change me, and you can't stop me from leaving tonight."

"Why do you have to go out though? Can't you stay in tonight and we could go over the Cannons versus Puddlemere match or something? We haven't hung out in so long. Or better yet we could get Fred, George, Lee and Ginny together and have a mini match together. We haven't done that in so long. You love Quidditch Harry.

"I – I – I can't. I'm sorry Ron. I've got somewhere to be."

"Why do you have to be somewhere? Can't you just call and – "

"I can't just call and say I'm not coming, doesn't work that way," Harry cut him off. "Maybe we can get together in a few days instead, I don't promise anything but we'll see."

Ron looked at him with worried eyes and nodded, moving out of his way. "Just be safe, Harry."

Double entendre if I ever did hear one, Harry thought, as he left the house, heading out for another night of fleeting pleasures, hoping to escape himself and trying to reach worthlessness, the unattainable state that he always hoped he would someday be.

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AN: OK so just a little something I was milling around with for a few days, and I'm not really happy with this, but it'll do. If anyone reads this and wants to beta this, or possibly work on it with me further to develop it some more, let me know in a review and I'll get back to you. Otherwise please review and tell me what you thought of this, it's a shot in the dark for me, this kind of fic. I'm quite seriously considering continuing this, but I don't know if I can do the angst justice, so please tell me how I went, and if you think I should continue, and any ideas for continuing. If I do continue this, Draco will probably come into this. So please review!


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